And before you ask, I don't even rank as a beginner. The only apps I've done were in the courses. Right now I'm stalled trying to understand some of the lessons in the forth and fifth Stanford lessons. I suppose three months was long enough for my brain to cool down, so maybe I should go watch them again.

Thanks so much...definitely a long range project for me. I write e-Learning programs at work and am challenged enough in using Adobe products. I would be thrilled to have someone come tutor me in my home just on the use of Photoshop...would love to be a super user of that app. Oh well, I can dream.

Some theory is a good starting point (things like optimizing algorithms, object-oriented methods, critical-path analyses, etc) but it only takes you so far. Then you need to just start writing code and learning up the language - writing code is as much a creative, artistic activity as it is a precise science. I'm always struck by how much writing computer code is so similar to learning to play music, in terms of the theory, practice and passion required.

(Disclosure: I was a software engineering major in undergraduate school, so extremely multilingual in a variety of software languages.)

You are lucky to be gifted in that area...I barely make it through my native language, so it will be a struggle.

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"Gifted" had nothing to do with it - it all came down to spending long hours and late nights to learn the language, sit down and write practical code, and "learn up" the language. (That - plus I'd flunk out of university if I didn't complete my projects/assignments.) I should also add that many of these cool apps are often collaboratively designed and created by a team of programmers, each of whom bring their special ninja skills to the project - so don't think that you'll need to single-handedly try to produce the next killer app.

With wallpapers I think it's much easier, because you don't really need to create an app if (at least as a starting point) you want to create and share wallpapers - just a matter of taking the picture, making any tweaks and then posting it up to share. My iPad and iPhone both have "handmade" wallpapers which I created myself - the iPad one with some help from the nice design people at Treegloo, who also built the case:

Ooooh...I love your case, I find maps intriguing. Actually this is all for a friend of mine. I told here there were no decent Tiki wallpapers and she is a wonderful artist, so we are trying to figure out how to get her connected to someone that could get her art in a wallpaper program that she could sell on iTunes.

I would like to do something on interior design...but it will be years before that happens.

I honestly don't know much about trying to sell wallpapers through iTunes, but my initial reaction would be: if people can share and download wallpapers for free from so many sites, and they can also create their own (if they're artistic and tech savvy enough), where is the business model where people would pay for it?

Maybe what would be more interesting is, for example, to create wallpapers and let people download them for free, but also offer the designs and art on other items which can be purchased. Take for instance this well-known classic woodcut, Flammarion's engraving:

You could then create a range of merchandise from the art. Flammarion's woodcut, in this case, is in the public domain so anyone can use it - but as an example, you can offer merchandise:

It occurred to us that people would be indeed be willing to pay a small fee for a wallpaper app that delivers on quality and reliability.

I'm honestly not sure how the existing apps are even allowed to be published on th eapp store as they clearly do not has the correct copyright for most of their content, I know as some our publishing our content!

Merchandising is always a struggle to make any money from in my experience, not because of the quality of the products, but the intense marketing that needs to be done for any success.

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